06 Jun Pitching Brands on Campaigns

On Saturday, I was invited to speak at the annual EC Meetup hosted by Eleanor from Just Ella Bella and Luchae from My Spreadsheet Brain. I was honoured to be asked to speak for the second time and was most impressed that the attendance had more than doubled since my first time speaking 3 years ago. As always, the event was impressively organized, featured lots of time to meet and network with our peers and brands and included an abundance of spoils, good eats, and lots of friendly faces.

Over the next week I will be sharing a series of blog posts that covers everything I said at the Meet Up, where I tried my best to really dig deep into the fundamentals of working with brands, covering everything from what you need to get started, how to find contact information, approach a brand, how to establish a relationship, etiquette and how to make money from your blog.

If you missed the first post, sharing 3 things you need before approaching brands, read it here, the second post talking more about reaching out to brands, read it here and the third post about establishing relationships with brands, read it here.

So, what happens when you have an idea and you want to pitch a brand before they have come to you? YOU GO TO THEM! You might be familiar with some of the bigger campaigns I have managed to pull off, from things like my bucket list challenge, 365 beauty tips, to my recent Mom’s Guide and Let’s talk about sex! All of these campaigns were late night ideas that in time, became some of my very best projects.

Campaigns have become my go to. Instead of sitting around waiting for things to happen, I like to make them happen and I urge you try it for yourself.

What goes into a campaign pitch?

Typically, I like to introduce the campaign and the challenge it addresses. For instance, The Mom’s Guide was answering the need for a one-stop place where new moms could get trusted reviews and guides on new and existing products, while Let’s talk about sex hopes to open the conversation surrounding sex AFTER having children.

From there, I paint a picture and show the brand how I imagine them to fit into the campaign and how their values or product meet the campaign’s message.

It’s important to KNOW your audience, so don’t be scared to dig through your analytics to find out everything from their location, gender, age to the marital status, their earnings, and how they’re accessing your platforms. I often see brands and bloggers overlooking this step and then not understanding why a campaign didn’t work, but in reality, they sent an anti-ageing skincare product to the value of R5K to a blogger in her twenties – it’s likely that her and her audience don’t use anti-aging products and CAN’T afford the product. So, before you pitch a brand, make sure that your audience is going to benefit from that brand, or else you risk losing your audience. Better yet, use your stats in your pitch – tell them WHO your typical reader is.

Once you have detailed the campaign goals, how you plan to achieve these goals, how the brand fits in with the campaign, you’ve shown why this campaign is relevant to your audience, it is time to discuss expectations and deliverables. So, what are you offering the brand in exchange for, and what is the value of said deliverables?

From there, it’s a matter of finding the contact information, sending out your campaign and making it happen. Again, I stress that PR and brands are human like us – they may not see your email or might have forgotten to respond – so if you haven’t heard back after a week or two, don’t feel bad for sending them an email asking if they had a chance to go through your campaign proposal and check if they had any questions.

And that brings me to the end of my talk; I feel like this series of posts really addresses my general process. Of course, I can spend hours going into more detail about pitching campaigns and showing you examples of how I have done it, but I am going to end off here and say that, as a blogger it can be very easy to get caught up in comparison but it’s important to focus on what you are doing! Instead of worrying about what everyone is getting and how you can do the same – ask yourself how you can add value by using your platforms. I’ve learnt that it’s the campaigns I am most nervous to pitch that end up being the greatest decisions of my career.

Did you enjoy this post?

I have great news! After so many messages, emails and requests, I have finally decided to launch my own online blogging workshop. Over the next month, I will be sharing the details, how you can sign up, and what I will be covering. Everything will be available online so that no matter where you are in the world, you can access it. In the meantime, sign up for the newsletter to get updates and follow @bloggingworkshop on Instagram.

I am Megan Kelly, the creator behind By Megan Kelly, mom of two boys, named Axl and Eli, and local business owner providing digital marketing solutions. I live on copious amounts of coffee, can be bribed with chocolate and will never admit to having too much makeup – although, I probably do.

About Me

I am Megan Kelly, the creator behind By Megan Kelly, mom of two boys, named Axl and Eli, and local business owner of Dr. Design, providing digital marketing solutions. I live on copious amounts of coffee, can be bribed with chocolate and will never admit to having too much makeup – although, I probably do.